Does the cold make a person stupid?

I'm looking for any excuse....

I prefer thinking I'm more slow-witted than usual to wondering if I've gone bonkers. This past weekend whirled out of control rather quickly, leaving me feeling like a piece of last week's newspaper blown about by a very cold wind.

First, I was stopped -- and ticketed -- for a cracked windshield. Although it cracked about four months ago, it's apparently only now in imminent danger of shattering? Cracking all the way through? Something dire, posing grave risk, at any rate. (If you suspect irony, you get an A+.)

And here I was waiting until it was at least a tiny bit warmer to get the poor glass man out here to replace it, since they do it right in your driveway. The patrolman wasn't nearly as altruistic. I've passed him in our tiny town, looking out from behind my cracked windshield, any number of times in the past four months. Apparently the crack, although looking the same to me, wasn't as serious in the past as it was Saturday. Maybe the cop wanted to get a good start on his March citations. Sigh.

The downward slide in mood continued when it was revealed to my cold-numbed? brain that I have not the $50 deductable for windshield replacement that I thought I remembered from the last time the truck glass was changed, but a $100 deductable.

I still must call the county to find out how much the ticket will cost. I have ten days to do so. So far, I haven't wanted more bad news.

On Monday, the 5th, I realized that Mr. Policeman returned my driver's license with the ticket, but not my proof of insurance. Nervous from being pulled over for the windshield ticket, I didn't want to risk not having a copy of my insurance details in the truck. As I drove to my State Farm representative's office for a replacement, the "low fuel" light came on, and I realized I had a whopping $5 in my wallet. It took a record 40 seconds to pour it into the gas tank.

And, later the same day, I was sure I smelled propane. Looking like an idiot, sniffing around the house like a hound, I decided it wasn't really strong, but I should probably have carbon dioxide or gas alarms in the house.

So I drove, on that $5 of fuel, back to the town where the insurance office and hardware store do business, and plunked down $50+ (I remembered my checkbook this time) for a combination CO2 & gas detector. I sat out in the hardware store parking lot, cutting the package open to read the instructions and install the battery. (I think my thought, if I was thinking, was to have it working already as I carried it into the house.) I got a few odd looks, considering that I had removed my glasses and was holding the instruction book about two inches away from my nose. Well....the print was really really tiny. OK, I admit I need to make an opthalmologist appointment. The good thing about getting older is that I can see better at a distance. The bad thing is that the distance at which one reads, knits, spins, is increasingly blurry.

I drove home, carried my purchase into the house, plugged it into a power strip on the floor (per instructions, since propane settles toward the ground), and hit the reset button, as the instructions told me. Sound! Lights! Terror! The most incredible siren went off and lights started flashing on the tiny screen, and the word GAS came up, and what wits remained flew straight out of my head. I unplugged the detector in defense of my hearing, and debated whether to get all the dogs out of the house, open all the windows to the sub-freezing weather, call 911, and/or...what?

Thankfully, I decided to re-read the instructions. You might think me foolhardy, but honestly, I didn't smell anything when I came back in the house, and I figured if there really was a leak then I'd be MORE apt to smell something after being out in the fresh air. Logical?

The fine print informed me that sirens, lights, and the awful word GAS would indeed present themselves in the first few minutes as the detector set itself. Sure enough. I went through the ear-splitting procedure again, and the screen settled down eventually to a steadily pulsing dot and the numeral "0". Sigh.

That left me questioning my sanity, or at least my nose, because I really had thought I smelled propane. Maybe it was one of the dogs.

Three or four inches of snow are predicted for overnight. The only good thing about it will be the better footing snow gives on top of the shear, bumpy ice making up the yard, barnyard, and driveway. Hey. Maybe optimism is just around the clock. Hope springs, unlike Spring.